B3s Touring no. 104 6 sp Manual conversion completed 12/3/18

Thought we'd tempt out our budding photographers. Share your photos. We'll add different themes from time to time.
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drewjak
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Post by drewjak » Fri May 31, 2013 7:18 am

Have a look at the link below simon there is lots of pics to look through and step by step guides ( I know you don't need it) but i think the pics with be use full in determining what could be wrong.
I could be wrong but it looks like its been put together in the wrong order maybe?

http://www.beisansystems.com/procedures/index.html

Edit*

Something that has just come back to me is, I remember a thread on here somewhere about Alpina giving some one a upgrade kit (i think contains a concave spring plate) which was a bmw upgrade due to excess rattle from the vanos, i wonder if this has been the problem?,
Where it has never been upgraded and has just been neglected and left to ware its self out.

what ever has gone on in there looks very nasty though! and it must have been making a right old racket !!
ESTORIL BLUE B3 3.3 COUPE #60 of 90
& the last 1 registered in 2000


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SPA69
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Post by SPA69 » Sun Jun 02, 2013 10:58 pm

Heres a few pics from when I rebuilt the vanos on my B3s


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Simon
E90 B3s BiTurbo Coupe
E46 B3s Saloon # 062
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Bruce M
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Post by Bruce M » Wed Jun 12, 2013 12:39 am

:shock:

Just stopped by and saw this.

The vanos hasn't been off in my time (since high 60's). It was a little noisy at idle but as per usual for worn vanos units, especially with the very low idle that Alpinas have (much lower than the 330i). No symptoms of the events going on inside. Quite lucky the chain didn't fail, taking out the whole top end and possibly the whole lot.

I also recall an update kit for the vanos bolts. I wonder if it is connected.

Il think Alpina offered the cam tool to another B3S owner on a sale/return basis. I assume it is the same as the stock BMW tool but perhaps it is worth firing a quick email to Alpina.

I'm glad to see it is getting the right attention now and will see more miles on the road.

:)
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Post by simon13 » Sun Jun 16, 2013 10:11 pm

That's interesting to know Bruce thanks, did it ever feel a bit flat in your time?

Its been a while but not because of lack of progress,


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Barrold kindly lent me this so I could get the sump off and have a looksee at the some of the shells see if its a mess in there also



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main end cap, all ok.......




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big end cap, worn as it be expected at the milege. But the front 2 had 1 score in each shell. The crank its self has no visible markings.



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A lot of work to get this far, but after consulting the usuall suspects its probably best to remove the bottom end.

Get it all out and cleaned up and go from there. Not what I wanted but its got to be done really to be sure. Bores all look very healthy lots of honing visible on all, all the way round too. I'm not planning at this stage to fit new rings and a re hone/glaze bust. I wont swear by it as things can change!


So now I need to get a her rolling again as I need the engine crane, which the e30 is blocking in, along with my engine stand. I can shuffle it all about then!



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F **kin grim ain't it. deepest joy, these were sad on these cars when they were 5 years old let alone now. The nuts had rusted to nothing




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I thought these rads bow at the bottom and blow up? This one is going from the top!



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I've TFR'd these with a strong mix and they are now a nice silver instead of the yellow staining from the salt up north, the budget isn't stretching to refurb on these yet!
I've bought 1 tyre and a rear needs a puncture repair I noticed today a nice nail in the middle




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rear springs rear shot blasted/powder coated



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new discs and pads too, cleaned up the calipers seals all ok. sorted hand brake, waxoyled the brake lines. I'd jet washed and cleaned out all the arches the other week




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new arm and bush for both sides




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All fitted, again with new discs and pads, plus a good clean up of the calipers moving bits. I checked the pistons on both sides and theres no corrosion past the seals. As sticky calipers are common on 330's ya?




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changed these 5mm allen key bolts out, that hold the abs/dsc sensor on. As they were grim and rusted. One snapped coming undone :( Just to help me later on if I get a sensor fault




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wheels back on, stripping front end down




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This has seen better days its like a biscuit! The air con system was gas tight though and blew cold. I've bought a new condenser from GSF as its generic e46 stuff





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ready to come out I hope, box is still on and prop disconnected



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the neighbours sigh with relief when they see the wheels back on
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Post by Hodge » Sun Jun 16, 2013 10:24 pm

You certainly do some proper jobs, quite amazing

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Post by simon13 » Sun Jun 16, 2013 10:33 pm

baby due in 2 weeks! must get as much of it done before my life stops!
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Post by shaziman » Mon Jun 17, 2013 9:51 am

Good jobs Simon, good luck with getting the car done before the baby arrives, yes its definately a priority as after that you will struggle! Your neighbours won't be happy if your car is on axle stands in 18 years time! LOL
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Post by simon13 » Wed Jul 10, 2013 5:58 pm

ok no update for a while but I've been trying my best to move it all on, the baby is now here but they are both asleep so here is my chance!


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right the engine came out, I've left that heavy box there its happy and out the way!

A quick jet wash of the bay has cleaned it up a treat, not done in this photo


I think I've worked out what went wrong now and how to fix it




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its all to do with these 3 bolts, you can see two types here, the fucked ones and the correct ones with the m6 nut on the end. my car didn't have any nuts?! why I don't know so the whole lot was moving back and forth.

The consequences of the swarf going around mill isn't great.



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a few of right and wrong as such.

onto the bottom end then.


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A few shots of the main bits, the crank is pretty tasty and, very small webs and its light, slugs are small and light along with the rods.

This is the ultimate 24v non M power bottom end, or a very exotic one as its all unique to this engine. Crank is used in the 3.3 version but the pistons are 3.4 only and 87mm.


This is where it get interesting or expensive..........

I inspected the shells. The main ends were mint, nearly zero wear to shells. Great.


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main ends, shes pretty clean inside, so much that you can still see the paint dab on these shells for the different classification. BMW use standard size shell from new, then either paint them white, yellow or green and they are ever so slightly different in size. 0.01 of a mm to keep the tolerances with the crank journals right.

A stock bmw engine uses a set as such so they are all the same colours. Not on this hand built beauty. Alpina obviously measure each journal and vary which colour shells they use. It all adds up in the end and shows the hand built nature of the engines.


Big ends not so, they were worn and there was scoring on a couple. Not good, the wear is expected at that milege and performance nature of the engine also so no surpise there



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Crank is ok and not needing a grind, so just a really good clean and blow out of the oil ways and shes good to go





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new big end shells, standard size



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an original big end shell, its gone dark grey indicating the wear, the cap end gets the harder time that this upper shell.



Onto the oil pump.....


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you see again some swarf has come up through the pump. The housing looked fine



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So a new gear and matching bit should restore any lost oil pressure.



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I've ended up having the block and head acid dipped cleaned to try and make sure all swarf it removed. Or anythats left. So the block needs painting again


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I've had the block re honed or glaze busted, the old honing was still visible still but there was some vertical scoring on the bores. This was the worst. Machine shop looked at it and declared it ok. No 6 pot picture here was the worst and you could feel it with your finger nail. Not good, but none of the scores come right to the top of the bores which is good. Meaning a total seal as such on the rings on the compression stroke


Now onto the piston rings.........alpina part number got me frightened as non of this was budgeted for but that's cars.

Stilling down the price was £108 per set. I need 6 sets........ :shock:


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Machine shop to the rescue, they deal with a German company called SM for their in house rebuilds they do. All they make is piston rings that's it.

I gave him old rings which were measured and he mentioned the pistons are more like something out of a race engine! the rings are very thin and exotic basically. Anyhow he measured them all up and rang to see if he could get them. The answer was yes and they confirmed these piston rings are only fitted to this engine! The 87mm bore size isn't an odd size but the thickness of the rings are being 1.2mm 1.5 and 1.2 irrc

Short of it yes they could supply for £38 per set! I bit there arm off and I sourced a full set for a third of the dealer £660 odd they'd want.

I know i'm going on but Alpina list only ONE piston size and rings for these engines. Theres NO over size rings are slugs listed. Meaning the bottom end is as far as it could be taken. No over boring if you block ends up damaged, or sleeving either I think.

So with some effort it can be done! So heart attack was avoided and the engine saved imo.

Onto the head now



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seats were in fab condition and lapped in nicely, as were the valves themselves. A good diet of super judging by the minimal carbon build up

My dads as always has given the head a re face. He took off 5 thou so nothing to worry that's just over the thickness of a human hair.

Again alpina don't list an over size gasket for heavily skimmed heads! More worry.

This is another issue I've looked into as the head gasket is a stupid price of £424 plus VAT. I've ordered one from BMW and it turned up in an elring box. My machine shop deal with elring, so I've got them on the case to see if I can get one like the rings and avoiding the sheer greed that BMW/Alpina have in their margins. So watch this space, they've ordered one in and its £60 plus VAT if its correct. I'm not holding my breath but worth a try?


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Valves all going back in, the valve springs are unique to this engine as are the camshafts.


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head built up ready to bolt down.



So its ended up being a full engine overhaul really. Not what I wanted or expected but that's cars. At least she should be good for another 100k if the gasket lasts! Plus i'll have to run it in now with new rings. But no.104 shall be good again!


I've not quite worked out how i'm going to build/fit the engine now my little girl has been born! but its the baby tram so even an hour a day will help
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Post by jamesa » Wed Jul 10, 2013 11:21 pm

Congratulations ... on both fronts !
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Post by L8 ALPINA » Wed Jul 10, 2013 11:50 pm

Congratulations Simon on the birth,

Keep up the good work, :wink:

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drewjak
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Post by drewjak » Thu Jul 11, 2013 6:39 am

Fantastic work and write up simon,

It seems there has been some kind of human error in the past while rebuilding the vanos
Its very difficult to judge what went wrong though,its very strange how the nuts seem to have worn away, it almost looks like some one has used the threaded insertsrather than nuts
It all looks very bizzare !!

great work on locating the piston rings ,hopefully you`ll have the same luck with the gasket.

congrats on your new arrival also
ESTORIL BLUE B3 3.3 COUPE #60 of 90
& the last 1 registered in 2000


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ALPINA......Because Gentlemen don't drift

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Post by neil » Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:42 am

Impressive stuff again !!

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Post by shaziman » Fri Jul 12, 2013 11:16 am

I bet all this work wasn't on the cards when you piked this one up!

Good work as always!
1995 E36 B3.0 Convertible (rebodied)
1996 E36 B3.2 Touring No:20 - 1 of 5 made
1997 E36 B3.2 Touring No:36 - 1 of 5 made
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Post by simon13 » Mon Jul 29, 2013 1:04 am

Right as of late things have been mega busy with the baby, work and this going on.

I'm going to try and keep it brief as time just disappears it seems! I expect most of you have kids so are all too aware of this. I've been pinching and hour or 2 where I can. She thinks I've been overdoing it but if I don't who will?!


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Bottom end nearly built up



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Here is where the fun started, a phone call to Phil Crouch put me in the right direction. I knew I was on the right track but its always nice to talk to someone whos done it before you.

To time this engine properly you need a special tool alpina use from factory, this applies to the 3.3 engine also.

Or you can go the engine builders way and use a DTI, which I borrowed off my Dad, aren't they great.



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This might not look great but these are my marks, between and including these lines is the distance the piston is at TDC, so I've marked the damper and when it comes to getting the chain on i'll be as TDC and possible and on the right track.


timing up the top end is as standard as we shall see



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Alpina leave a notch out of the vibration damper on the front and use a tool that slides through the crank sensor hole like this socket



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So it probably looks something like this socket with a little nib on it to lock the bottom end for chain fitting time


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heres the infamously expensive head gasket. My machine shop are an Elring dealer but I in the end spoke to their trade guy about this and their system has no record of it! Alpina must have this tied up again for mucho profit.



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Head bolted all down and installing the camshafts with my wonder bmw dealer tool



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Both cams in and locked at TDC with another dealer tool



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Time for some vanos Action, These sprockets and chain are good spares I bought as the originals were toast as we saw.


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The old tensioner had had it also,



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Phil reckons a lot of these later B3s have this same problem as mine did and he always converts them over to the older nut and bolt system like I am. Following more advise he reckons new tensioner and these shims gives a quiet vanos unit again. So that's what I've done


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New seals and 5 nuts from a secondhand unit as 2 of mine were all worn away as we saw previously the rest of this Vanos unit is good so I've re used it




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Spacers all on ready to fit the vanos unit



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With this tool which turns the chain to engage the unit. It took me 3 goes to get it right, if its not done properly valves can bend. Not good.




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So unit on, and the start of nailing all the sh!te that's attatched to these



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exhaust manifolds, nut and bolt job on the joins now after drilling the rusted up studs that where there.



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Sump ready to go on



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The mills nearly ready to re fit!



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Some graffiti to help me or some other poor soul later on when this headgasket fails!




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Ready to go!




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Half in, I bolted the box back on and swung the lot in together



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The mill is in,



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re building the front end



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New A/C condenser along with dryer and coolant rad - thanks Bruce! with 2 new hoses also




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Go go go!




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:D The dash is like a Christmas tree so its covered 1.3 miles as the box is locked in 3rd currently with the logo on the dash. I've had the ignition on with lots of bits un plugged. So i'm hoping a plug in with the diagnostics tomorrow with sort these. Its faster in reverse at the moment. Not good for running the rings in but that's for 2moro job I hope. Box won't change gears use switch tronic :(

Had one drama, somehow the starter ring gear got bent and was rubbing on the engine/box somewhere and making a horrendous noise! Straightened the best I can and its all quiet.

Heater/coolant seems to have bleed up easily and is red hot .i'll be in love once its run in think. My wife is happy too so it must be good!

So number 104 B3s wagon is most definitely back in business


They're a bit of a looker when they're nice these e46's. Nearly* as good as an e30
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Charles
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Post by Charles » Mon Jul 29, 2013 1:16 am

It's like deja-vu :D

When Phil timed up my engine after the rebuild, we adopted the "old school" approach to TDC as well. Didn't help that the upgraded flywheel had a locking pin hole in completely the wrong place :!: :!: :!:

Off to see Phil for a Vanos tweak in the next month or so - wish I was as brave as you, Simon :D


ETA: You appear to be missing the cover for the Xenon control unit to the side of the airbox :wink:
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